Dull torture

"Untraceable," the story about a killer who displays his deeds on the Internet, has the elements of something potentially unsettling.

The versatile Diane Lane is FBI agent Jennifer Marsh, who along with her partner (played by Colin Hanks), are assigned to track cybercriminals that we always hear of, as in sexual predators and identity thieves.

The situation gets decidedly more intense with the discovery of killwithme.com, a site that documents the slow torture of a human who is tied to a bed of heat lamps and dipped into water among other things.

The trick here is that the more people who log on to peek at the victim, the quicker the subject will die.

The concept of "Untraceable," directed by Gregory Hoblit ("Fracture" ) and written by three people (not a good sign), is not bad. With our world growing increasingly voyeuristic because of the Internet, tapping into a potentially horrific situation does hit home.

With every keystroke registered on the Web, citizens are becoming more and more traceable, which makes this seemingly untrackable threat even more menacing.

Tonal inconsistencies undermine the movie's smart aspects. It's as if the filmmakers decided that it needed to pander to crowds that enjoy watching gruesome torture on the big screen.

On the plus side, Lane, who can elevate basic Hollywood genre films such as "Under the Tuscan Sun" or "Unfaithful," delivers a believable performance. Her character appears genuinely unnerved as the threat starts to affect her domestic life.

Unfortunately, "Untraceable" doesn't trust its target audience to enjoy the more subtle scares.

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